


two into one (we into me)

by makemelovely



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Freak Show
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22764121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemelovely/pseuds/makemelovely
Summary: Dot insists on the surgery. Bette agrees.
Relationships: Bette Tattler & Dot Tattler, Dandy Mott/Bette Tattler
Kudos: 13





	two into one (we into me)

Dot insists on the surgery, her mind pestering Bette’s at all hours of the day. She thinks long and hard while Bette focuses on the sweet smile playing on Dandy’s lips and his smooth palm against hers. He laces their fingers together and swings their arms while they walk about the house, Bette chattering happily while Dot gloomily slumps through their long strolls.

“Please, Dandy,” Bette finally asks, tired of Dot poking and prodding and ruining everything she’s ever wanted. “Won’t you allow us the surgery?” She bats her eyes, lashes fluttering against her pale skin. Her voice is breathy, and it’s all unintentional of course. Anything else would be unbecoming.

Dandy regards them both carefully, but it’s Bette’s hand he’s holding. That fact alone sends a triumphant wave crashing through her mind straight to Dot’s. It doesn’t bother Dot at all, of course. She thinks entirely too much of Jimmy, of his kind eyes and dark hair. The gentle way he smiles at them, a soft lifting of the corner of his mouth. Dot doesn’t care, but Bette does. That’s really all that matters. “This is what you  _ both  _ want?” He asks, his eyes searching.

Dot’s eyes skip over him, but Bette meets his eyes broadly, smile playing on her lips. “The only thing we’ve ever wanted.” She lies, and it doesn’t taste as sour as it would have an hour ago. That’s probably Dot’s influence, though.

Dot hums in agreement, already planning her next meeting with Jimmy when she’s only one person for the first time in her whole life.

Bette helps her, eyes sparkling as she thinks of possible outfit combinations for Dot. A whole new wardrobe for a whole new person.

It only occurs to her after Dot’s fallen asleep and is dreaming of Jimmy, that she should be planning her life after the surgery. Shouldn’t she go into the operation hopeful? Shouldn’t she want to survive? She thinks of Dandy and his gentle touch and his razor voice, and she thinks of Dot’s consciousness ebbing into her own.

It won’t do to pretend that they don’t both know who’s supposed to survive the surgery.

It’s always been Dot.

* * *

Dandy stays by their side every day leading up to the surgery, earnestly promising to see Bette soon and tentatively patting Dot on the shoulder as he leaves their private hospital room. He smiles at Bette over his shoulder, nods briskly at Dot, and Bette is supremely pleased that the warmth in his eyes is directed at her and her alone.

Dot snidely thinks  _ You won’t be alive long enough to enjoy it,  _ and Bette pretends she didn’t hear.

The doctor explains the surgery again, cautioning them about the risks. Dot assures him they know what they’re in for, Bette nodding in agreement.

He gives them a strained smile, and Bette hopes Dot looks normal enough on her own to garner genuine smiles.

In the operating room, Dot drifts into darkness first. Bette lets her eyelids slowly flicker shut, thinking all the while that this will be the last time she closes her eyes. It’ll be the last time she breathes while conscious, the last time she has a sister, the last time she knows she’s alive.

Today is a momentous day for lasts, it seems.

_ My last nap,  _ Bette thinks as she slowly slips into sleep.

She doesn’t expect to wake up. It’s supposed to be Dot who survives.

It’s supposed to be Dot.

More than that, it’s not supposed to be her.

* * *

When Bette opens her eyes after surgery, it’s honestly a surprise. She had never expected to live. Part of her had never wanted to live if it wasn’t with her sister. Dot may have been cold and stern, but Bette had loved her all the same.

Dandy smiles fondly at her from the chair beside her bed, and Bette marvels at the sight of him.

“Dandy?” She whispers, her voice a scratchy croak that makes her die a little inside. Gosh, how embarrassing.

He brushes her hair from her face just as Bette notices how small her hospital bed is. Roomy, even. She supposed there’s no reason to crowd when there’s only one of you. “I’m here, Bette. I’m right here.” He assures her, his skin cool against her heated skin. “Can I tell you a secret?” He whispers, playfully arching an eyebrow.

“Anything.” She breathes groggily, a voice berating her for the sultry tone at the back of her skull. It sounds like Dot.

He takes her hands in his. If Bette didn’t feel so strange as a singular girl, she’d swoon. “I was hoping you’d be the one to survive.”

_ Me?  _ She wants to ask him.  _ Why me and not Dot?  _ Instead, she says “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Can I tell you a secret?” She echoes his words from earlier, her voice growing faint as she slips towards sleep.

“Always.” He tells her indulgently.

“I didn’t think I would survive. It was supposed to be Dot, you see.” Bette confides in him, her eyelids drifting shut as she drifts peacefully into slumber.

Dandy watches her for a long time, a beginning strike of angry lightning snapping inside of his veins. It’s like fire burning and brimming, but eventually the sight of Bette’s serene face soothes the brunt of his anger, smooths it into something refined and sharp edged. This anger will wait.

This anger is a patient anger.

This anger is the worst anger yet.

* * *

Bette wakes up for a second time, two more times than she expected to. It’s not a sweeping relief. It’s a quieter kind of relief, one that soothes not only the bones but the soul as well. It’s a bittersweet kind of relief because every time she awakens is a time Dot does not.

Bette doesn’t know why it hurts so much. Every thought that is hers alone and is met with no mental jab brings an ache to her chest, a fierce sort of ache that lingers in her joints and bubbles in her blood. Missing her sister is an acidic sort of ache, one that lingers long after their surgery.

_ Her  _ surgery. There is no them anymore. Dot made sure of that.

Dandy brings her flowers and candies and teddy bears, presenting them proudly as she smells unique fragrances and tastes extravagant tastes and strokes her fingers over soft fur. He preens as she oohs and ahs in the right places, babbling about his bothersome mother and the people at home eagerly awaiting news of her condition.

In the beginning, he is kind to her. Sweet and loving, attentive and devoted. He only gets mad at her once.

“Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t want the surgery?” He demands once, his eyes burning ferociously.

“Dot wanted it.” She tells him over and over again, growing more anxious as his frenzied paces grew with increased mania.

“You aren’t Dot!” He snaps.

“Of course I’m not Dot. Dot is dead.” Bette announces bitterly.

Dandy glares at her, an annoyance so vile it scrapes against Bette’s raw skin. “You think I don’t know that? Where would I be if you had died instead, huh, Bette? I wouldn’t have anything. Dot would’ve left the second she woke up. I would have had nothing.”

“Don’t say that. You have so much, Dandy. How could you possible want to be with a freak?” Bette complains, the worst of her insecurities flaring up.

“I’m not with anyone, let’s be clear. You are with me. I  _ own  _ you, remember.” His voice is harsh and hateful and it makes Bette’s hair stand on edge. “I bought you fair and square. You’re mine, Bette.” He shouts, face red, but the words must soothe some terrible part of himself for his anger recedes, fades into himself as if it was never there at all. “You’re mine.” He repeats like a mantra, turning abruptly and stalking out of the room.

Bette doesn’t know if that last sentence was a reminder to himself or to her.

All she knows is that he returns the next day bringing a bear and a brush of his lips. She lets him hold her hand and laughs at his jokes and softens the worst of her grief. She can be malleable for him, for her dead sister. She will live and she will love and Dandy is the only one offering anything for her. Maybe if Dot were here she’d have thought up an escape plan, but she’s dead and Bette’s all that’s left of the Tattler Twins.

Dandy presses a hard kiss to her hand, and Bette learns how to stop flinching.

He doesn’t like it when she flinches, and eventually he’ll stop seeing her as the girl in the hospital bed with the poorly fitted gown.

Bette figures she has to start learning how to survive on her own. This is as good a time as any.

* * *

She gets discharged three weeks after her surgery. She’s the second success case, and there are cameras flashing when she’s wheeled out of the hospital.  _ Look, Dot,  _ she thinks to herself.  _ We’re famous.  _ It was never Dot’s dream to be photographed and admired by the public, but Bette thinks her sister would have wanted these particular cameras on her, capturing her newfound freedom from her freak sister.

She leaves the hospital on a Wednesday, and it’s the first time she’s felt the sun without Dot by her side. She finds she likes the warmth, the heat of the sun shining down on her dark hair and grazing against her skin. Dandy walks beside her, preening under the bright light of the cameras. Her hand is tucked securely against his elbow as he helps her into the car, pressing a kiss to her hair. The way he glances back at the cameras to see if they’ve captured his tender affection makes her queasy. It seems like she’ll always be the freak he bought for show, an amusement that distracts him from his darker urges.

He takes the wheelchair back to the hospital before returning to her side, sliding in beside her in the backseat. He had rented a driver for the day because his mother is sick with the flu, he explains. Dandy slides closer to her, and this time his tenderness is a show only for her. “How are you feeling?” His voice is quiet, and Dot would say a lie while Bette yearns to believe it’s a fond undertone she’s hearing. It rings through his voice like a church bell, the vibrations echoing in Bette’s bones and sending sparks reverberating through her veins.

“Better.” She answers honestly, reaching for his hand. His skin is cold when she touches him, but he locks their fingers together before she can retract her hand.

“Good.” He replies, looking immensely pleased.

She bites down on her lower lip, hard, but the words leak out from beneath her teeth anyways. “Thank you for getting the surgery for us. I know you liked us better when we were an us and not an I.” Her cheeks burn with her honesty, a shameful sensation.

The car pulls to a stop in front of Dandy’s house. “Don’t be silly, Bette.” He tells her. “I’ve only wanted you as you were. Dot didn’t return my interest and you became a focal point for my affection. It’s only ever been you, Bette.”

“Oh.” Bette says, and Dandy gets out of the car. He walks over to her side and opens her door for her, scooping her in his arms and beginning to walk towards the house. He leaves the door open behind him, the driver rolling his eyes as he climbs out to shut the door of his car. Dandy carries her over the threshold, looking softly into her eyes as he strides into his house.

_ Oh,  _ Bette thinks.  _ This must be what love is. _

* * *

They get married in the spring. Bette dyes her hair blonde and curls her hair so she looks like a princess in the pretty white dress she had always pictured wearing. Dandy looks dashing in his suit, and his mother cries, weeping silently. Bette never says  _ Aren’t you happy for us?  _ Because she looks at Bette with pity in her eyes.

The night before, Dandy’s mother drinks whiskey in a glass and doesn’t slur her words despite her clear inebriated state. “I would never wish Dandy on my worst enemy.” She murmurs when she’s had enough drinks to wave it off in the morning as drunken nonsense without it actually being drunken nonsense.

“That’s awfully rude.” Bette comments, her heart thudding slowly against her ribcage.

“He’ll take a piece of you, dear, and you’ll never get it back. You’ll lose yourself in him, and he’ll swallow all your good parts until you are a vessel for his evil, for his bad intentions. Oh, you’ll love him beyond the point of reason. Or that’s how it is for me. He’ll ask you to do terrible things, and you’ll do them, and you’ll carry that with you forever. You’ll carry his actions as well as your own. Can you handle it?” She asks placidly, intent in her questioning.

Bette swallows, her smile wobbling on her face. “I  _ love  _ Dandy.” She promises.

Dandy’s mother sighs, a weak sound that flies through the air as though weightless.

Bette says I do and Dandy says I do and maybe she’ll finally be happy with his mouth on hers, warm lips and cold ring on her finger. The normal girl and the normal boy and the normal wedding. It’s not quite everything she’s ever wanted, but it’s enough.

* * *

Dandy’s love is temperamental, but good at heart. He doesn’t ask too much of her, but is just doting and gentle enough to appease her insecurities. He doesn’t look at other women, preferring to speak to her about a variety of topics that Bette does her best to speak about with depth and intelligence.

Everything is perfect until Dandy kills the maid.

She wakes up on a Tuesday morning to a drizzly sort of morning that drifts into a sunny afternoon, but first she wakes up to a murder. The maid sits on the kitchen floor, her eyes wide and blood smeared along her throat and leaking out of puncture wounds on her abdomen. Dandy finds her in the kitchen when she screams, horror scraping at her throat.

“Oh, you found her.” He says, sounding pleased.

Bile rises, hot and sharp in Bette’s throat, but she chokes it back. “What did you do?” She gasps out.

“Isn’t it obvious? I killed her.” He explains what his mother would do in her situation, mentioning a previous maid and a slew of others before the beginning of their relationship. A husband always has expectations of a wife, but Bette never thought it would be like this.

She cleans the blood of the floor with shaky hands, scrubbing and scrubbing until there is no more red on the white floor. Luckily, the woman had no family to speak of, and god Bette feels sick that the beginning of that thought was luckily. She buries the body in the yard, Dandy keeping watch from the window as he drinks his morning coffee.

“You can never do that again.” She says later, her face red and blotchy and her eyes wet with tears. Her face is stained with the tears she’d cried, and she wants to hide from him, but he wouldn’t let her, his fingers wrapping around her wrist.

“Of course not.” He replies insincerely. They both know it will happen again, and they both know what Bette will do again.

_ If Dot were here,  _ Bette thinks, but no. Dot wouldn’t be here. Dot would’ve left the second she was able to, always distrustful of the rich man courting them.

_ If Dot were here, I wouldn’t be here.  _ Bette thinks, and she doesn’t know if she wishes Dot were here or not.

She’s not sure at all.


End file.
